Other Side of Paradise, page 16
Jean had nodded. Had taken his hand warmly in hers before she said goodbye, thanked him for coming, for talking so fondly about Charles, though she shared not a drop of blood with this exceptional young man, a fact of which they were both aware. But when she lay in bed that night, each time she came close to it, sleep would evade her grasp, her mind unable to settle, her body tense. Each time she thought of the lunch – of the words of her mother-in-law, the attitude of Edward towards this gentle man; the chill of the nursery etched into every act of her husband’s, handed down like a badge of honour from his mother – a rush of emotion, of fury, would return and flood her entire body so that she was wide awake, heart hammering in her chest.
She did not know if she truly believed in God. The journey of her life until now had not caused her to question him. He was someone prayed to as a child, by rote, the words meaningless as she ran them together, a jumble of familiar sounds that lay between bath and bed. But she felt an urge to pray now, eyes wide open in the dark, to swear to someone if they were listening that she would not bring up her boys in the same way. That they would know – no, more than that, they would see and feel – the intensity of her love for them. However unfashionable, however unseemly that would appear to her husband and his mother, it would be her way.
Jean thought then of the different blood that her babies carried. What had so attracted her to David was the ease with which he could engage his emotions, that for him opening up was something to enjoy, not to fear. And so the prayer became a promise, became the whisper of hope to her in the dark of this unending night. She would go, she would go. Back to France, even if only for a month, with her boys. She would go with them and make a home free of the lies, the conflict, the burden, the judgement, of this place; where emotion and feeling and real life could be lived. Away from Harehope, with its stone of grey and soul of ice.
Chapter Seven
Cap d’Antibes, 1925
Jean walked up the narrow street, the walls that lined it blushing with the creep of crimson bougainvillea, Alfie’s hot little hand in hers. An old man had pointed the way, his face one of bemusement as this young woman, dressed in pale pink silk and a straw hat the colour of the corn at harvest, and the little boy beside her made their journey up and away from the bustling harbour, past the boulangeries and épiceries now closed for the afternoon lull, up and beyond until they came to this quiet little street where only locals lived, nestled as it was in the oldest part of Antibes.
Alfie was defiant now that he had the ability to walk. He didn’t like to be carried, would arch his back and push away if he was held against his will, desperate to be let down and to make his own slow, unsteady passage. So the pair made ponderous progress, avoiding the streak of sun – sharp as a knife’s blade – that held one half of the street captive, she pulling Alfie forward when he stopped, distracted by a butterfly dancing in the still air, its wings blood red, the only thing of movement in the thick heat of midday.
She had known the house was David’s as soon as she saw the bicycle leaning up against the wall outside, remembering its battered brown leather saddle and the low rack at the back where he would string whatever books he was reading at the time. As she drew closer, close enough to take in its shutters of pale blue, their paint peeling a little, and the rough, nubby stone of its walls, she felt her stomach drop at the reality of what was finally before her after months of agony and deliberation. What would David make of her, this woman he had not seen in two years, who’d left without a word; what, too, of this blonde, drunken angel at her side?
The door opened, and a young girl – no more than eighteen or nineteen, with a dark plait snaking down her back – came out and began sweeping the stone steps of the house with enthusiasm. She looked up, startled, as she sensed Jean drawing nearer. She didn’t smile but tapped quickly on the window to the right of the door, terror and intrigue battling each other on her face. There was a brief pause, and then the door opened and David was before her, a look of enquiry as he looked at the girl, then over her shoulder to Jean and Alfie beyond.
He was just as he had been the last night she’d seen him. The same as he had been in her dreams, or in the moments when she lay, eyes open, in the dead black of night running over and over past scenes she had lived with him. But now he was here before her, her whole body felt charged and the air seemed to pulse with the tension she carried within her.
‘Jean?’ His voice was hoarse, and he rubbed his face roughly. ‘I haven’t heard from you in nearly two years. I thought you were never coming back.’
‘I came from England last week.’ Her voice caught and she had to clear her throat. ‘I saw Sybil and Frank. They said they hadn’t seen you for a while but that you were here, gave me your address. So I thought I would come. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you.’
She watched him try to make sense of her as she scanned him for signs of change too, for revelations of anger, of coldness; she knew he would see the weight she’d lost, the dark circles beneath her eyes. He looked down at Alfie, now captivated by the girl who had gone back to sweeping the steps, though her eyes were locked on David and Jean; he was mesmerised by the broom in her hand, putting out his hands to have it.
‘Wan’, wan’’, he said in his baby-talk way, and the girl giggled nervously, eyes flicking to David, unsure of whether to concede the broom.
Alfie’s words seemed to jolt David awake and he pulled himself together, pushing the door behind him open. ‘Will you come in? It’s a bachelor’s home really. It’s tiny. I’m not sure what I’ve got to offer your little boy, but come, please.’ He opened his arms wide, gesturing for her to follow him inside.
The narrow hallway was cool and dark after the sharp sunlight of before, and it led into a small kitchen with whitewashed walls and a rough wooden table at its centre, its low windows giving on to a small courtyard. He asked the girl, Lisette he called her, to get a jug of cold water and to cut up some bread and butter for Alfie to eat. They sat around the table, an awkward trio, Jean occupying Alfie with a spoon that he was now banging with enthusiasm on the table.
‘I couldn’t come back because of being pregnant with Alfie.’ She looked down at her son, a mother’s involuntary smile briefly lighting up her face. ‘I was so sick with it – and then George, my next son, he came along so quickly after… I can’t believe it’s been nearly two years since I was last here. We were up north in the summers, and then back down in London. But I needed to get away for a little while, and I’ve thought of here, of this place, every day.’ She stopped herself, checked the emotions lying just beneath the surface. ‘I haven’t been quite myself, felt bogged down by it all, by this change that motherhood brings.’ She looked up now, embarrassed. ‘And then I thought perhaps I could come back out here and… I so wanted to see you… I’ve left George at the house with our nanny. Brought Alfie…’
Her voice trailed off. Her hands were shaking and she laid them flat on the table to stop the movement. How to say any of this when two years of life had passed, two years in which she had lived off scraps of memory: the blue of his eyes, the timbre of his voice, the way his face changed when he smiled. These alone had sustained her. But to say any of that in the polite back-and-forth of this cramped kitchen was impossible. Each time she took a sip of water, she felt the effort of it nearly overwhelm her, the effort of keeping herself whole and not splintering into pieces on his kitchen floor.
David looked quietly at Alfie, who was kneeling now on his chair and joyfully pulling apart the bread, spreading crumbs everywhere; he took in his mop of blonde hair, his nose, that familiar blue of his eyes. ‘How old is he?’ His voice was quiet.
‘He’s nearly one and a half, he was one in March.’ And as she watched him watching Alfie, she knew he understood.
He looked up at her. ‘Let’s go outside. I can show him something.’
Lisette’s face fell. She did not need to speak English to understand the opera unfolding before her.
The street outside was still empty, the heat like a wall around them. There was a little lizard, its body a bright, almost lime green, frozen on the steps, sensing danger. David took Alfie’s hand, and her heart caught at the sight of them together. He brought Alfie towards the lizard, and his attention was immediately caught by the creature. He stood beside his father, head bowed, brow furrowed in concentration as he watched it dart up and onto the wall of the house next door.
David turned to her and his face was drawn, the lines at his brow deeper than she remembered. ‘Why did you go so suddenly? I thought I would never see you again. I wrote to anyone I could think of to find out what had happened, but all they said was that you’d gone back. Then I read in the papers that your father had died, and it nearly killed me to see your name there, in print, and to read about the funeral, and you and – Edward. But they didn’t mention any children. I knew you hadn’t sold the house out here, but you never came back.’
She kept her eyes on Alfie as she spoke, leaning against the wall opposite David’s house. Her arms were folded, and she pulled at the sleeve of her dress. ‘When I got back to England, I found out I was pregnant, and…the baby was yours…and I didn’t know what to do about it. It nearly crushed me that a life was growing inside me, that I felt alive for the first time, having met you, but that…it was like this. And the only thing I could do was to paper over it all, to make it proper, and so I did. I told Edward I was pregnant as soon as I could – he knows the truth, how could he not? – and he went along with it and everyone was delighted, said how it suited me, how they hoped it would be a boy, and then Alfie came, and there he was. And he was you. And Edward can barely look at him.’
And then she broke, finally, the effort of holding it in becoming impossible, and she felt her body give at the relief of saying the words out loud. She felt David’s arms around her, and it was then, as they stood together and she felt his heart beating against her own, that she knew it would begin again. That this was what she’d come for.
Eventually he let his arms drop, and they stood for a while in silence, side by side on the shabby little street, watching the boy – their son – as, bored of the lizard, he found a pile of loose stones next to the steps of the house and began stacking and unstacking them. The sun was now directly overhead, but neither could take their eyes off him. She felt drunk, light-headed at the revelation of the truth and at David’s presence beside her.
David looked across at her, shy still. ‘I’ve thought about you too, you know. Every day. Every day I remembered something from that month, till I didn’t know if they were memories at all but rather dreams, of something so perfect that it couldn’t have existed. Scenes from someone else’s life. Those dinners where everyone else was invisible to us, the walks along your beach, an hour when we could be alone. I knew you’d never felt it before, didn’t know what to do with the power of it. But there was – there was an innocence to it that made everything feel true, not like an affair. It felt more than that.’
He looked down, tracing the outline of a cobble with his shoe.
‘When your husband came out, I saw what this life was that you had chosen. How unsure of yourself you were with him, how you shrank in his presence. This English boy, elegant, celebrated, who everyone was fascinated by. And I saw myself through his eyes, how someone from his world, your world, would see someone like me. An irrelevance, an imposition. It killed me. So I said that stupid thing about your money, his title. And then when you left without saying anything, I realised that you were so different to me, that all we’d had was an illusion. That you and I could never stand up to—’
‘That’s him. That’s not me.’ Jean almost shouted the words, surprising herself with their vehemence. It was so important that he understood that the part of her he had known was the real part.
Alfie turned at the noise and made his way towards her now, arms up, wanting his mother. And she picked him up, holding him at her hip. She kissed his cheek and smoothed his hair, before he wriggled down and away from her again.
Jean turned to look at David, keeping her voice measured. ‘I want to stay out here for a little while. I’ve opened up the house, and brought help for the boys from England. Edward’ – she swallowed his name like an awkward pill – ‘is down in London and says I can stay out here for a while, get the boys out from under his feet.’ She looked at him squarely now. ‘Can’t you see that this is what I want? I’ve come back.’ And she held a tension in her body at the anticipation of what he might say.
He held her look, his face solemn, and put out his hand to hers. ‘That you’re here, before me, it’s enough. Whatever this is, it’s enough.’
Chapter Eight
So France became a haven. David had taken her back. Welcomed her with open arms, accepting her, her boys, whatever part he would play in it all. They picked up where they had left off, living for the time they knew they had, a month in July or August, the odd snatched fortnight when she would come on her own in June. Moments of bliss, streaks of joy.
Her house there was a place of refuge, and everything she touched, drank, tasted, she would draw up into herself: the simple joy of bleached heat on the beach at midday or the gentle slip and slide of the water that fringed their bay; the chill of the sea when swum at dawn, the initial touch making her gasp and then the pleasure as she swam forward to David as he treaded water in front of her, the water smooth as marble around him, willing her to come deeper; the feel of his skin on hers, still warm from the sun with salt she could taste as they lay together on afternoons where it was only them and the rest of the world was nothing. When she was back in England, back to a husband who knew where she went but said nothing, just set his face to hate, she would close her eyes and it would be there, like the flicker of film in a darkened picture house, the pleasure hers to enjoy alone.
These were summers where she would watch her boys grow, as year by year they changed from babes in arms to tousled-haired little boys that cried furious tears when tired or wronged – oh, the depths of injustice they could feel at the smallest thing – and then with a pang another year would have passed, another summer would be gone and she would return with them to England, baby fat giving way slowly but inexorably to slim, muscular bodies, golden from the sun.
And who were they, these brothers who knew nothing of themselves? At first Jean had thought to try and separate them, to make more of a gap between them so that the differences between them would be less apparent, but it was impossible. Their bedrooms at Harehope were at opposite ends of the long nursery corridor, but as soon as he was old enough, George would find his way to his brother’s room in the morning, climbing into his bed, where the pair would chatter and play like puppies until Nanny came in to pull back the curtains. When questions were asked of them, George would always tilt his head, waiting for the words that Alfie would speak for both. He had been slower to learn to talk too, lacking the need when someone could do the job perfectly for him. And as the relationship grew, it became symbiotic; the more George looked to Alfie, the more Alfie would look out for George. And there was a kindness that ran through it all that made Jean’s heart ache. A gentle patience with each other that remained when the rough and tumble of infancy had fallen away.
They were so close in age that they were almost twins. She had seen brothers three or four years apart who were separate characters, forming themselves in opposition to the one who came before or after. With her boys, it was different; they discovered everything together, so that opinions, passions, beliefs were somehow formed in unison. She saw it as they began to take in the possibility of Harehope and what it offered them: the river, the woods, the vast tracts of moorland that ran behind the house; endless spaces where imaginary worlds could be created away from the grown-ups – high seas for marauding pirates to sail or battlegrounds for soldiers in arms to march – worlds of delicious escape which the two brothers would voyage together.
Their father watched it all, silently, seeing the judgement the world was making and carrying his implied failure like a knife that he would pull out on his sons when tested. The brothers could never comprehend his dislike, this uneasy presence that hung like a pall over their perfect childhood.
Jean had been away in London. She hadn’t been able to see David for close to five months, a stretch apart, though punctuated by letters and snatched telephone conversations, that exhausted her. In periods like this, her desire would turn to longing and then reluctantly but inevitably to a sort of vague despondency and a wheedling anxiety that she would push down, that perhaps he might not need her as much as she needed him. So she’d escaped to town for a week, finding solace in the distraction of lunches with girlfriends, of a trip to see the latest Noël Coward, a wander alone around the Royal Academy, losing herself in the shuffling strangers processing through its airy, light-filled rooms. The boys must have been eight and seven by then. Alfie was all skinny legs, perpetually bruised from adventure, a child for whom the world was an endless tree to climb or river to splash through, and the source of a million questions if he could only stand still long enough to listen to an answer. His younger brother was more hesitant, aware always of his arm, the way it hung limply at his left side; it was shorter and far thinner than his right, unable to bend fully at the elbow. The attempts that the doctors had made to improve it – so harsh, so painful for him; braces to bend him, to pull him, to straighten him – she had loathed so much that she had one day simply stopped them all. There would be no more intervention. He was just let be. So George was his brother’s shadow, keeping up where he could or listening to the report, with eyes bright and face lit, of whatever he could not.
